Bringing Focus to the Consumer –Need for connected home solutions to incorporate human behavior analysis

The connected home brings up the image of a myriad of smart devices, applications and platforms addressing various lifestyle functions of the consumer. The quick proliferation of IoT has made this area notoriously synonymous with vast data streams and compiled intelligence in need of processing and analytics. While that conundrum in M2M communication reaches its inflection point, a huge gaping hole still remain unattended– the focus on the consumer. Incorporation of human behavior analysis into the innovation process for smart devices can offer significant inputs towards making them function more accurately and predictability.

Motion sensors, cloud cameras and voice recognition systems have attempted to offer a level of behavioral sensing capability in smart home products, but false diagnosis and unpredictable results constitute but a small part of their list of cons. The issue can, however, be addressed by low-cost image sensors working with advanced embedded imaging and computer vision technology. This is an area of innovation that is just beginning to unfold with a growing breed of connected home solution suppliers recognizing the value that can be integrated to their offerings. United Kingdom based Apical Ltd. currently offers this technology through their ART system, which is already complementing smart phones and voice recognition systems within the connected home. The company’s partnership announced this morning with Tend, based out of Fremont, California, is expected to bring people detection capabilities into home security solution that will reduce false alarms. Tend’s latest offerings within its Vision-as-a-Service (VaaS) platform for the connected home will incorporate the concept of Smart Detection powered by Apical’s ART system. See Press release here: http://tinyurl.com/obofjbp

This could offer a credible enhancement to various connected systems and devices by enriching their performance through a correct distinction between human and non-human based events to make real time decisions. Besides security, energy management is a strong adjacent area where this technology could offer some good value enhancements as more vendors consider integrating solutions based on human behavior pattern detection, aided by advanced embedded imaging and computer vision technology.

While it is still early play, a critical consideration is the affordability of solutions. A service based model, as opposed to a product driven push could be well justified, given the low up-front cost to the consumer, and the continued benefit from added-on features and services. However, from a market development standpoint this could potentially propel technology and service providers with innovative offerings into the market, without them having to work ground-up.